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NEW JERSEY, August 15, 2001: This major article in the New York Times reports that in recent editions of India Abroad, a weekly newspaper for Indian expatriates in the United States and Canada, advertisements have run soliciting customers for doctors who will tell the parents the gender of their unborn baby. The objective is to insure a boy child, girls being almost always aborted. The article explains that this procedure is legal in the USA while illegal in India itself. The Times describes the ads as an example of “niche marketing,” the selling of a product to a relatively small group who desire it. There has been little objection to the practice from the general Indian community, although India Abroad itself yanked the ads as soon as they were brought to the attention of the publishers. “As immigrants, we really had a chance of starting with a clean, fresh slate,” said Shamita Das Dasgupta, a founder of Manavi, a New Jersey group that provides counseling for abused South Asian women. “These practitioners are taking advantage of a practice that is totally misogynous, and unless the good-thinking people of our community stand up and let their voices be heard, such practices will continue happening.”

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